Word on the Street: Downtown Development Corp. not adopting transparency of similar groups

Sunday

Jun 22, 2014 at 5:32 PMJun 22, 2014 at 6:23 PM

Chris Kaergard and Nick Vlahos of the Journal Star

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

A public-private partnership starts up to focus on economic development and improvements in part of central Illinois. The organization, whose board is headed by someone from Caterpillar Inc., is getting some public funds, but doesn’t intend to open up its meetings for public attendance or scrutiny.

If you guessed Focus Forward Central Illinois — which had some transparency concerns when it started out life under former chief Jim Baumgartner — you’d be wrong.

Under their new board, and new transparency policies, they’re proving to be a model for how public-private partnerships can still be open about how business is being conducted while keeping the nitty-gritty of negotiations where they belong.

The new Downtown Development Corp., on the other hand? Let’s just say board members there aren’t interested in taking a page from FFCI’s book.

The group recently named ex-Tazewell County Administrator Michael Freilinger as its new executive director — a solid choice from both your columnists’ dealings with him. But the organization hasn’t been without controversy even before now.

Downtown developer and restaurateur Pat Sullivan has complained there’s no voice among Downtown or Warehouse District business owners on the panel, and he took those complaints public at a Peoria County Board meeting when that group was being asked to kick in $25,000 to the DDC. Proponents have noted that having business owners help oversee development may present a conflict in itself. Others have said business owners can stay involved with the DDC in other ways. How that’s possible with closed meetings isn’t precisely clear.

Ultimately, the County Board held off amid other questions about why the county ought to be involved in the organization. But that helped give rise to the transparency question.

Presented with FFCI’s actions — public notice, public meetings, executive sessions for private material including negotiations to attract businesses — DDC board chairman Chris Glynn, a Caterpillar appointee, indicated he wasn’t interested in the way other groups not related to the DDC conducted themselves, and that he was comfortable with the way things operate there.

At-Large City Councilman Ryan Spain, one of the city’s two appointees, at least gives the matter some consideration. But he argues that the two organizations weren’t entirely alike, and that the DDC would spend much of its time actually working on deals — stuff that would ordinarily be done behind closed doors — and a minimal amount on the finalized proposals. There’s some merit to that.

But for us, it’s simple. Public buy-in requires public comfort. Government funds mean more scrutiny. Whether that’s to fund regional economic development, a neighborhood project, or even a hotel. Taxpayers deserve to have confidence their money is being spent well — and governments shouldn’t spend that without at least some provisions in place. (C.K.)

A reprehensible error?

What happens when you combine spellcheck and perhaps not the most thorough job of proofreading?

You get a news release like the one from U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s office that crossed our transom Friday.

The release itself was routine. It listed the traveling office hours the next few weeks for Kinzinger, a Channahon Republican whose district includes Bureau, LaSalle, Putnam and a portion of Stark counties.

The list began innocently enough, with Kinzinger staffers available from noon-1 p.m. July 1 at the DePue Village Hall. And it continued in that vein until it reached the Ogle County stop, June 30 in Rochelle.

It’s at “State Reprehensive Tom Demmer’s office.”

Turns out Tom Demmer is a state representative from the 90th District, located between Peoria and Rockford.

We hear politicians called a lot of things. Sometimes we even call a few of them some of those things. But is Demmer really reprehensive? We checked his website to find clues.

Alas, we came up virtually empty. About the only nefarious thing we could discern about Demmer is that he’s from Dixon. And we didn’t necessarily think highly of Dixon even before the former city treasurer embezzled almost $54 million in municipal money.

Seriously, we sympathize with whoever put together the news release — and whoever double-checked it. Those people might be one and the same, which sounds a lot like the doing-more-with-less philosophy so prevalent in media today.

Then again, we almost never make a misteak. (N.V.)

Put this on the board

The old Peoria City Council chambers is going out in style Tuesday night. And perhaps early Wednesday morning, too.

The agenda for the council meeting this week contains 39 items. About half are listed under regular or unfinished business, which means a vote on each one, even if it’s for a deferral.

(And don’t get us started on deferrals. Part of the reason the agenda is so heavy is because of deferred items — in some cases, multiple times.)

Some agenda items are likely to elicit considerable debate. Those include the request for a Downtown hotel-project management change and whether to offer a contract to bring the LST 325 naval vessel to Peoria.

Things that aren’t on the agenda also might be discussed. Among those are Mayor Jim Ardis’ most recent Twitter-related comments, an expletive-laced tour de force of a news conference that took place between council meetings.

After the final gavel falls, the council chambers will close for remodeling, which is likely to take the rest of this year. In the interim, council meetings are to be held at the Peoria County Courthouse and at various sites throughout the city.

So if you’re watching or listening at home Tuesday night, or if you’re following your swarthier columnist’s reports on Twitter, we suggest you take the advice of a usually moronic telecaster who describes the games of a Major League Baseball team based on the South Side of Chicago:

Sit back, relax and strap it down. (N.V.)

Chris Kaergard (C.K.) covers politics and Peoria County government for the Journal Star. He can be reached at 686-3135 or ckaergard@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisKaergard. Nick Vlahos (N.V.) covers Peoria City Hall. He can be reached at 686-3285 or nvlahos@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @VlahosNick. Read their blog online at blogs.pjstar.com/wordonweb.

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